However, the xref drawing is imported essentially as a block.So, if you animate object/s in the xref drawing, you will only be able to have one as an actor, or all of them, which may be a bit limiting.If you have a number of elements in the xref drawing which you need to animate separately, then split your xref drawing into separate individual drawings and import like that.You will have many more blocks in your main drawing, but the drawing size will still be less.The choice is yours . . .

At the last count there are 71 xreference files and these drawing objects represent the basics of whats required in the drawing from an animation point of view. The main boat drawing will include many basic pipes and flanges based on various sizes and these are best drawn as blocks. Im close to starting some animation but before I get ahead of myself I need to ask some questions on how best to setup the Turbocad Program Setup options.

Can I gain any advantage by checking or unchecking some of the options under Regeneration and Miscellaneous to improve render or file load performance?

Therefore to do justice with turbocad & anilab and trying to keep the main drawing as small as possible and get the best render speed Im wondering if this approach makes sense from an animation point of view: As I navigate each compartment with anilab, Im thinking of splitting the overall design into scenes (if you like) that way I can animate a scene based on a sub section of compartments (like the main engineering to the auxillary machine rooms) much like youd animate a house from room to room. My point here is that if I do break it into scenes then Im not loading unwanted objects and or large xref files etc.

Does this make sense for anilab?What are any down sides to this approach?

Finally Im using Movavi for videos, but the last time I did any video work I noticed the file size was huge even when I kept the resolution down and the capture window small.

What video editor are you using?Or are there any free online video converters?

Can I gain any advantage by checking or unchecking some of the options under Regeneration and Miscellaneous to improve render or file load performance?

I personally leave everything in Miscellaneous turned off, Except I leave 'disable quick switching turned on. I have not done any tests to see what affect it has, but my way of thinking is, the more things that are turned on in TC, the more work the cpu has to do, which could affect performance.

As I navigate each compartment with anilab, Im thinking of splitting the overall design into scenes (if you like)

That is the approach I take (sort of). I have not used xref's, but when doing a long animation, I record I segments (scenes), much like they record movies in real life. They record in small scenes, and stitch them together afterwards. With AnimationLab, the last thing you want is to wait for 10 hours recording a movie only to find some faulty renderings at 6 hours. and have to start again (and, yes, that does occasionally happen).

I use layers to turn off things that will not be seen in a particular scene. and sometimes use the layer switch command to turn things on only when required. When recording, I tend to aim for about 2 to 3 hours at a time (actual time, not length of animation). though I have occasionally left an animation to render overnight. The amount of frames I use in each scene, depends on how long a single frame takes to render.

What are any down sides to this approach?

The main downside, is in the planning stage. one has to ensure that camera position and especially lighting is correct when recording a new scene, once lighting is how you want it, don't alter it between recordings. The last thing you want is to record say 300 frames, then a second 300 frames, and find when stitched together, the second set is slightly brighter or darker then the first. This will probably not be much of a problem for your boat, going to different decks or rooms, which will naturally have different lighting. but can be a problem with mechanical stuff, when showing different views of the same objects.

Finally Im using Movavi for videos, but the last time I did any video work I noticed the file size was huge even when I kept the resolution down and the capture window small.

They are big But its not as simple as window size. There is a also the colour bits per pixel. with AVi you are talking 25 frames per second normally with bmp format of 24 bits per pixel. a single 1280 x 720 screen x 24 bits is around 2.7 MB per frame, x 25 frames per second = 67.5 MB per second of animation. The full colour part of the knife video I did is only 16 seconds but the AVI file is 1,082,712 KB. This size is reduced once saved as, for example an MP4, but AL cannot directly save as MP4, so the native full colour AVI from AL will always be large.

What video editor are you using?

I still use one from years ago called Serif MoviePlus, but its no longer in development. I also have Corel VideoStudio which was on a cheap offer a coupe of years ago.

Or are there any free online video converters?

I have only used the free 'Handbrake' video convertor. But normally I want to edit the video, or add some text, so most often I do use a video editing program.

it would help us enormously, if you saved your main drawing file, with external references (Xrefs), saved as relative. Otherwise, when transferred to another PC, individual Xref blocks have to be relocated and loaded, to suit a different setup.This is not a problem with a couple of Xrefs, but can be tedious with a large number.

it would help us enormously, if you saved your main drawing file, with external references (Xrefs), saved as relative. Otherwise, when transferred to another PC, individual Xref blocks have to be relocated and loaded, to suit a different setup.This is not a problem with a couple of Xrefs, but can be tedious with a large number.

yes, Epack is handy. But, using the absolute file path on your machine, when saving the file with associated Xref's in another folder, doesn't necessarily work, when unzipped onto someone else's machine.Unless all the files are in the same folder and/or the other PC has the same drive/path names.Saving the Xref folder location, if different from the main file, as relative, should overcome differences on another machine. At least, for me, that's the way it seems to work.